Finders Keepers with Emma Rutherford

FINDERS KEEPERS | MASTERS & MUSES | WORLD OF CABANA 

Portrait miniatures were made for the hand, explains Emma Rutherford, because “they were the only way of obtaining an honest portrait of someone you loved”. A specialist, Emma has built a career bringing these small, charged objects back into view through The Limner Company. As part of our Finders Keepers series, she reflects on two special objects: one she found and one she could not let go.

INTERVIEW BY EMMA BECQUE | MASTERS & MUSES | 27 MAY 2026

It began at Hever Castle, with a portrait miniature thought to depict Anne Boleyn. “I could imagine Henry VIII holding this portrait,” Emma Rutherford says, “feeling dizzy with love and lust.” This moment sparked the specialist and dealer's “lifelong passion" for portrait miniatures, highlighting them as a “portal through which I could get closer to the past”. 

While completing her Master’s degree, Emma worked at the V&A, where the national collection of portrait miniatures enabled her to conduct further research. From there, she moved to Bonhams, rising from junior specialist to Department Director, before a chance meeting led her to Philip Mould & Co, where she remained for 15 years, curating exhibitions and making discoveries, among them a lost portrait of Charles Dickens. 

In 2023, she founded The Limner Company, working with a small group of academics and conservators to research and sell portrait miniatures while placing them more firmly within contemporary culture. There have been moments of visibility, including four pieces she sourced appearing on Jonathan Anderson’s Dior couture runway in Paris.

Before photography, they were “the only way of obtaining an honest portrait of someone you loved,” recording not only likeness but love affairs, fashion and loss. “I feel so privileged to hold them,” she says, “in the same way that their original owner held them.”

My Greatest Find: Miniature Portrait of Arbella Stuart 

"Peering over the shoulder of a conservator at a memorial service, I could not quite believe what I was seeing. “The owners thought it was Elizabeth I”, he said, but clearly this young woman, standing in a garden, was not the ageing queen of the 1590s. 

"On the conservator’s phone screen was a full-length “cabinet” miniature of a woman in the most expensive court dress I had ever seen. Embroidered all over her dress were tiny armillary spheres and stars – she was weighed down by her jewels and a feathered false hair piece – and by her side was a tree sapling. “I think I can work out who it is”, I whispered, my main thought being that I just wanted to see this extraordinary portrait.

"While it is a common misconception that portrait miniatures were always small, they were actually defined by their materials and technique, not by their size. Although this portrait of a young woman was 21cm high, it was still a portrait miniature, painted in watercolor on vellum. Fewer than ten examples – two of them left unfinished by Nicholas Hilliard (c.1547–1619) – are known to survive.

"Derived from illuminated manuscripts, portrait miniatures were painted in the same way – using the same watercolor, bodycolor, and powdered gold and silver paint, as well as a red pigment known as minimum, which led to their being called miniatures. Of course, their size dictated their function: small, secular portraits designed to be highly personal and private, usually worn in lockets. This magnificent portrait of a young woman was a cabinet miniature – painted in the same technique as a bust-length miniature but designed to be displayed in the cabinet room of a grand house, usually a kunstkammer of wonders that also displayed collections and natural specimens.

"What followed the first sighting was a year-long research project. When the owners first found it, it appeared to have never been seen by anyone. It was completely unrecorded, unframed and unresearched. When I found a note relating to Bess of Hardwick’s accounts, stating that on 27 July 1592 “Mr Hilliard” was paid £3 for completing a “picture in greatter”, it made me wonder if this related to the portrait – and that in fact this was not Elizabeth I but Arbella Stuart, who in 1592 was the likely candidate to become England’s next queen. More evidence, along with the help of a colleague, Dr Elizabeth Goldring, supported this identification, and the discovery made a big splash in national newspapers and academic journals.

"Arbella’s story has been lost to history, but is worthy of a film – she was kept a virtual prisoner by her paranoid grandmother, the centre of numerous plots to assassinate Elizabeth I, a fantasist who once stated she was secretly engaged to the already married James VI of Scotland. She eventually starved herself to death in the Tower of London.’

The Piece I’ll Keep Forever: A 15th-century Ring 

"The piece is not a miniature, but it feels along the same lines in what it represents. It is a ring datable to the 15th century (another example is in the British Museum) that I bought from the dealer Matthew Holder. Matthew and I have collaborated on a few portrait miniatures, and when I asked him to source a ring for my husband to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary, he was typically enthusiastic and helpful.

"It’s always nerve-wracking to buy jewellery for a spouse, but this ring is truly timeless and strikes the perfect balance of gilded silver (not too blingy!). It’s a little large, but of course it cannot be made smaller, and it’s probably better that way round. I love the idea – just as with miniatures – that this will eventually be passed on to the next owner and worn with love, just as it was when it was first made over 500 years ago."